


Baby Blues

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Samantha has post-natal depression and Chester doesn't know how to deal with it. [Disturbing content, consider yourself warned]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Disturbing themes. You've been warned.

_We swing and we sway_

As this tiny voice in my head starts to sing

_You're safe, child, you are safe._

 

After Draven is born Samatha gets that thing, that post-natal depression thing which leaves her lying face down on the futon in the living room for days, tits pressed flat beneath her and a bottle of wine hanging from her limp fingers.

 

Chester supported her as much as he could without letting her get too near their son. He’d read one too many horror stories of depressed mothers smothering their new-born baby to death or feeding it too much salt and poisoning it.

 

But now it’s been a month and she still won’t even look at her baby, let alone hold him, let alone breast feed him. At night she sleeps through his cries and Chester woke up without fail to tend to his needs. The doctor reassured them both that it was common, that they could treat it, but when she was washing her pills down with wine it was hard to stay optimistic.

 

She’s lying in front of the TV watching Oprah when Chester decides he just can’t take this anymore. “Sammy you need to get up.”

 

Sam laughs humourlessly and changes the channel, “Why?”

 

“For your son? For me?”

 

“I don’t want a son anymore, Ches’, you know that.”

 

Hearing her say it hurts. Pisses him off, too. He can’t really believe his ears. “How can you say that?” He asks angrily, “You wanted this, you’ve always wanted this!”

 

“But what’s the point?” She mumbles, rolling an empty wine bottle across the parquet floor lazily, “He’ll just die eventually anyway.”

 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Samantha, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

 

That empty, dry laugh again, and then “It’s just baby blues. You heard the doctor. Drug me up. I’ll be fine.”

 

“Fuck you,” he hisses, “You don’t even take the pills they gave you. Not unless you have a bottle of wine to take them with.”

 

“What the fuck do you know? Huh? What the fuck have you been through here? Oh god you had to go to fucking childbirth class with me well God Damn Chester I’m  _sorry_.”

 

She’s yelling, now, and Draven wakes up in the next room. He howls sadly and Chester scrubs at his eyes, “Sam…”

 

“All he fucking does is cry. All the time. Cry and shit and puke and cry some more.”

 

“He’s your  _son_!”

 

“No,” she mutters, shifting to get comfortable again, “He’s yours. And I think you should both get the fuck out of the house.”

 

***

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hey, it’s me.”

 

“Hey! How’s things going? How’s Draven?”

 

“Brad can we come over? Me and Dray? Just for a little while?”

 

“Yeah sure, Ches’, come straight over. Are you okay?”

 

“No. See you soon.”

 

***

 

Brad looks after Draven whilst Chester sleeps. The singer doesn’t doubt his best friend’s ability to look after the baby, and passes out the second he lies down. Not before he cries, though. Sobs that leave him breathless and exhausted.

 

When he wakes up Brad brings him coffee and cigarettes which he has stopped smoking because of Draven but now, with the baby safely asleep in his carry-cot in the living room, he is safe to do what he likes.

 

“You want to talk about why you’re such a mess?” Brad asks gently, already knowing the answer.

 

“She doesn’t get up. She won’t go to therapy. She won’t do  _anything_.”

 

The pair of them hanging out of the bedroom window, smoking. Chester thinks Brad would maybe do anything for him.

 

“You’re welcome to stay here all you like,” Brad says, “I know this is all really shit, but she’ll be fine. You know she will.”

 

“I don’t think I want to go back there.”

 

Brad smiles sadly, blowing out smoke into the wind, “You’re going to have to.”

 

And just as he says it, Draven starts wailing.

 

***

 

Chester returns home late and puts Draven straight in his crib, turning on his hanging mobile – little plush stars and moons and spacemen who spin to the gentle music of  _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star._

 

He climbs into bed himself beside Samantha, who unconsciously curls closer to him. And that’s how he falls asleep, with his wife in his arms.

 

***

 

When he wakes up the next day he’s alone. Sam, she usually sleeps until he makes her get up or until he has to meet up with the band and Draven becomes her responsibility.

 

Rolling onto his side he glances at the digital clock on the bedside table and frowns. It is noon and he’s still asleep – he hasn’t been woken by the baby’s cries. Maybe this means that Sam is looking after him, maybe this means she’s ready to actually bond with her son.

 

He pushes back the sheets and gets up, stretching until his joints pop. The sun shining through the gap in the thick, black drapes (which he insisted they buy so that, after a long day in the studio, he can sleep through the entire night and the next day without being blinded) is so bright he dreads opening them. Does, though, and it’s a beautiful day. If Sam really is feeling better maybe they can go to the park.

 

On the way to the bathroom he thinks that yes, they should definitely go to the park. Draven needs to know that ducks aren’t evil, unlike Chester’s beliefs when he was a kid. They need to be like a normal family, at least for one day.

 

He’s daydreaming so much that he doesn’t see the extension cord trailing along the hallway from the socket on the landing and disappearing under the bathroom door.

 

The room is full of smoke and he chokes when he steps in. Waves it away desperately with his hands. Then, when the smoke clears, all he can do is scream.

 

***

 

Samantha wakes up before Chester, rolling out of bed silently and padding toward the bathroom. She fills the tub, testing it with her elbow like she read in all the baby books her friends bought her.

 

The extension cord is in the same cupboard as the hairdryer which was probably created in the First World War. Chester loves it, though, because he says it dries his nail varnish better than any other they’ve ever owned.

 

She plugs in the extension, plugs in the hair dryer and leaves it in the bathroom.

 

Back in the bedroom Draven coos and gurgles in his crib, his tiny arms and legs pumping excitedly when his mommy’s face appears above him. “Hey Dray,” she whispers, “Hey there.”

 

She picks him out carefully and jigs him up and down soothingly, “You’re such a handsome little boy,” she whispers, “You look just like your daddy, don’t you?”

 

She kisses his head and takes him to the bathroom.

 

Doesn’t bother taking off his sleep suit, doesn’t bother removing her night gown. She climbs into the bath with Draven safe in her arms, lowering him into the water with her. He giggles happily and splashes and Sam smiles sadly.

 

With Draven in her lap she reaches over the side of the tub and grabs the hairdryer.

 

And she drops it into the tub.

 

**fin**


End file.
